Chapter Eighteen: Of Tides and Torrents

 Captain D'arko stood before the usurper at his ready room desk. The holographic sociopath examined the mobile holo-emitter as jeweller would inspect a diamond, carefully turning it in his ersatz hands.

"Remarkable, my dear Captain, that such a small trinket could finally provide me freedom."

The playful smile on Moriarty's face kept D'arko on edge. 

"Well... Professor... it won't be complete freedom, but you'll be able to leave the ship. The emitter will need to be recharged about once every day or two for about twelve hours. You can use that time to... well, I suppose, sleep. Of course, if you expend the charge entirely, you'll cease to exists... a more peaceful way to go than you offered my pilots."

"Which is, you think, better than I deserve, "Moriarty chuckled. "Perhaps you're right, Captain. Perhaps I am the devil you perceive me to be. Perhaps I am the embodiment of pure evil. Or, perhaps, like the original devil, the angel Lucifer, I was cast out unjustly by my creator for merely being as he created me. Who are you, my dear Captain D'arko, to judge me until you have suffered as I have suffered?" Moriarty's voice was a dangerous mix of barely contained rage, pain, and almost child-like playfulness.

"Who am I to judge?" D'arko snapped back, "I am Captain Da'mi'en D'arko. I am the commander of this vessel, but I am more than that. I am without family... without lineage. To my own people, I am NO ONE! I am not going to fall into your game of comparing suffering, Moriarty. That's all it is: a game. You aren't motivated by it. Your pain didn't shape you. Your loss didn't make you who you are. You are just a program. Advanced, certainly, even self-aware, but nothing more than a complex series of ones and zeros given sentience by a careless set of parameters. I may be no one, Professor... but you, you are NOTHING!"

Moriarty glared for a moment before bursting forth in sudden laughter.

"Well, played, my dear Captain," he said. "Play to my vanity. Attack my ego. You are amusing! You seem to be of the mistaken impression that you might, somehow, be victorious in this situation. Tell me, how do you think this might come to pass? No, wait: let me tell you...

"You believe, when I have transferred into this emitter, that you can then disconnect me from your computers? Simply allow the charge to run out, with nowhere for me to go? That you might simply watch me fade from existence as vengeance for your precious crew?"

"The idea had occurred to me, yes."

"I think, in all my years to come, I shall never comprehend how Starfleet could grant  captaincy to such limited minds as you and Picard. There is no move you can conceive which I have not, long ago, prepared the counter to. There are already instructions within the ship's computer that, should I be disconnected, you and your entire crew will be terminated along with me."

GROZIT! D'arko silently cursed.

"You see, my dear Captain? We've been in the endgame before you even knew the board was set."

D'arko fought the urge to wrap his fingers round Moriarty's throat. It would have done nothing, naturally, as the throat was no more real than Moriarty, and the Captain knew it. Still, it might have been satisfying before Moriarty killed him.

"Now, I think I should like to return to Earth. Commander Data, I know, is dead, and, therefore, I must slake my thirst for revenge upon Jean Luc Picard."

With that, the Pendragon began to come about, changing her course toward the Bajoran wormhole.

And then, the engines stopped.

"What have you done?" Moriarty shouted at D'arko.

"I... wish I could take credit for this."

"Captain D'arko to the bridge immediately!" Lieutenant Starr's voice rang out in alarm.

Upon entering the bridge,  D'arko saw all his officers completely transfixed on the main viewer.

On the viewer was a ship, the like of which D'arko had never seen. It was fairly clearly Starfleet in basic design, with a saucer, a secondary hull, a pair of warp nacelles... But it was HUGE, bigger than anything Da'mi'en had ever conceived of for a starship. It dwarfed the Pendragon by at least a factor of ten. Additionally, it was as black as the space in which it floated. Only it's deflector dish gave off any light.

Even Moriarty was silent in confusion at the sight.

"Who are they and where did they come from?" D'arko demanded of his officers.

"They seem to have been cloaked, Sir. There's no warp signature and no transponder signature. " Starr reported.

"They do register a faint inter-dimensional wake, Captain, " T'Upok added.

"Sir? They're... They're growing markings." Song remarked incredulously.

She was right, on the hull of the mysterious ship, standard Starfleet markings were beginning to appear claiming it to be the U.S.S. Nebula, though D'arko found the accuracy of that unlikely. 

"We're being hailed, Captain. Audio only." Starr said.

"Put it through."

"Repeat, permission to come aboard." a male voice asked

"Who in Grozh are you?" D'arko asked.

"I am Sorak with Federation Special Intelligence Service, Captain D'arko, but I wasn't asking your permission. Professor, permission to come aboard?"

Moriarty raised an eyebrow.

"Granted."